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Special Reports - Levy Coverage

Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009

Arrest imminent in Chandra Levy's death, police tell her parents

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WASHINGTON -- Chandra Levy's parents are now awaiting the imminent arrest of the man suspected of murdering their daughter nearly eight years ago.

In two unexpected telephone calls Friday night, Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Lt. Michael Farish advised the Modesto residents that "substantial evidence" enabled investigators to request an arrest warrant in the long-unsolved murder.

"It's more bitter than sweet," Susan Levy said in an interview Saturday morning from her Modesto home. "This still leaves a hole in my stomach."

The case of the missing 24-year-old former intern captured national headlines in the spring and summer of 2001, in large part because of Chandra Levy's relationship with then-Rep. Gary Condit of Ceres. Police never named Condit as a suspect, but media attention and controversy surrounding his behavior cost him his political career the next year.

Susan Levy said Lanier did not identify the suspect by name in the telephone conversations, which occurred about 7 p.m. PST Friday.

"She just wanted us to know that this was really big, and that they believed they caught the murderer," Levy said. "She felt excited that they were able to put the pieces together."

Lanier, in a statement issued Saturday, said only that "this case generated numerous bits of information, which we continue to follow up on."

Previous news reports have noted investigators' interest in Ingmar A. Guandique, a 27-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador now in federal prison in Victorville. Guandique is serving a 10-year term after pleading guilty in the attacks of two women in Washington's Rock Creek Park. Levy's skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002, a year after she disappeared.

Raised in Modesto, Levy arrived in Washington as a Bureau of Prisons intern and University of Southern California graduate student. She was last seen April 30, 2001.

'Life warrant of sadness'

Levy's remains were put to rest in May 2003 at Lakewood Memorial Park in Hughson. The mystery of what happened to her has continued to unsettle family members and loved ones.

"We have a life warrant, of sadness and loneliness," Su-san Levy said Saturday.

Levy's disappearance rocketed to national attention after reports began surfacing about a relationship with Condit. Condit does not dispute reports that he eventually told investigators he was having an affair with Levy, though he consistently denied the relationship was "romantic."

The relationship between the former Bureau of Prisons intern and the much-older Democratic congressman, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, prompted fevered speculation and intense media coverage. Condit's defenders say the public attention on the congressman distracted police.

"Both the police and the media leaped to the conclusion that Condit had committed a crime," Condit's former chief of staff Mike Lynch, now a Modesto-based political consultant, said in an interview Saturday. "They sought evidence to prove his guilt instead of evidence to solve the crime, no matter who did it."

Condit, in a telephone interview Saturday with Washington's WJLA-TV, added that "an insatiable appetite for sensationalism" interfered with the murder investigation.

The controversy led to Condit losing his congressional seat in a 2002 primary election won by his former staffer, Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced. Condit and his family now live in Arizona, where they ran two Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores for a while. Condit also has filed multiple defamation lawsuits as a result of tabloid coverage of the Levy case; the lawsuits have been settled or dismissed.

Ready '24-7' for D.C. trip

Susan Levy appeared on several cable television programs Saturday but declined to discuss Condit, with whom she and her husband had notably tense relations.

Levy told The Bee that she and her husband, Bob, a physician, were just about to leave for a dance performance at Modesto's Gallo Center for the Arts when the police reached them Friday night. Even after the two life-altering phone calls, Levy said she and her husband went ahead to the evening show by the Trey McIntyre Project.

"It was good escapism," Levy said.

Levy said she and her husband would be prepared "24-7" to return to Washington, where they have previously met with Lanier and other investigators. But for now, the family still is adjusting to the latest developments.

"We were going to go skiing (Saturday)," Levy said, "but to tell you the truth, how could we go skiing now?"

Bee Washington Bureau reporter Michael Doyle can be reached at mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com or 202-383-0006.